Sendik’s

I’m or should I say was a longtime customer but after today’s experience I’m very disappointed the customer service in the bakery was terrible two guys just kinda standing around one guy playing with his jumbo sharpie I walked up to the bakery case paused and was looking at all the choices for almost a minute not one of the guys came to ask if I needed anything or even a hello I walk around the entire case from the cheeses to the deli meats and saw more bakery and decided I wanted a chocolate pastry and again waited as no one else was waiting or even near the bakery finally I had to ask the guy to please assist me and to me that’s just not acceptable. It’s a smaller grocery store in the village and I’m sad to say that I know I will never go there again because this has happened to many times and so instead I will give my business to the whitefish bay Sendiks market which I have been to as it’s convenient for lunches near my job and have always received great service

This location is very small with narrow isles and you feel claustrophobic. We usually come here just for our meat. The meat dept is legit! The employees do a great job cutting the meats to your needs, and making great suggestions on what to buy. They have a decent (but pricey) produce dept, and we also hit up the deli on occasion for side dishes. Beyond that, we do our grocery shopping elsewhere. The prices are ridiculously more expensive than other chain stores in the area. This just isn’t a good atmosphere to do your big shopping trip to feed your family for the week. When I shop, I power through the isles grabbing what I need, searching deals so I can utilize my coupons, and quickly getting the heck outta there. For God’s sake, yesterday I had to carefully move my cart around two people singing and playing the guitar! I don’t know about you, but the grocery store is not the place I go to relax and listen to music. It’s not what I want to be seeing or hearing as I’m picking out tomatoes. But that’s just my opinion. To each their own!

As a new Shorewood resident living without a car, I go to Sendik’s often. The bakery is great and the liquor department, while small, has excellent choices. Prices are too high. I expect them to be higher than a large chain but Sendik’s goes beyond. It smells oddly in back where the meat and fish departments are.
Entering the store is awkward and customers pass the magazines and flowers after paying on our way out. There’s a broken door.
If you charge upscale prices, I expect an upscale market.

I hate how small this place is. I have also gotten some bad tuna steaks from here, which I was very disappointed by. I will run in occasionally for a quick item or two, but that is about it. There are other Sendik’s that are much more spacious and with a better variety. I will say the produce is always good, a little high priced, but good.

I knew Sendik’s was super fancy… but didn’t realize it was like this. $ 8 for a small bowl of taco dip? No thanks. The store is goofily arranged, they have huge areas for the bakery, deli, and a real actual bar, but everything else, you know the GROCERY aspect of it seems like it’s an afterthought. I’ll stop in next month to pick up a king cake from them, but any other time, I’ll be going back to Pick n Save… and just saying that makes me feel sick.

Thank GOD the we now have another real BUTCHER on the east side. i was looking to make steak Tar Tare for New Years and Bavette was closed. every Butcher shop i called said they mechanically grind the meat, but they clean the Grinder every night… wow …great. ONLY Bavette would actually hand cut the meat for this eaten raw treat, Karen was my first call, she was closed through the New Year, until now DOC is the man at Sendik’s on Downer and the guy is for real. Really a treat to find an Artisan.

I have been frequently Sendik’s on Oakland Ave about three times a week for the last 5+ years. I really like their variety of specialty items throughout their store. I enjoy their «hot foods» which is part of their deli; there is usually an assortment of heavy, traditional type dishes. They also have a large array of cold deli salads, foods you can reheat at home (steaks, chicken, Mediterranean foods, etc) and packaged salads/​dishes to take to work. Several of the deli workers are quite friendly and accommodating (as well as the bakery and meat counter personnel). They also have a large selection of deli/​cured meats, cheeses, and bakery items. In the back of the store is a full service butcher where I can get my dog smoked beef bones (woof, yum). Their produce selection is sizeable and usually of good quality. You do have to make sure sale items are ok, or use them right away. They have very inexpensive avocados and a great house made fresh salsa. The dry goods are quite expensive (like any tiny grocer), so I mainly just stick to specialty goods or sale items. They have a respectable selection of wines and often have wine tasting on the weekends, but most of these can be found cheaper at Otto’s down the street. They recently put in a small bar (a few taps, mainly wine) near the registers. I have not checked it out yet, but the woman that tends it seems to very knowledgeable about wine and is always offering a taste to a curious guest. They have a beautiful floral department with ready-​made bouquets or flowers «ala carte» so you can create your own. Most of the young cashiers are really friendly and polite. There is a stocker (I think he might be a grocer manager) who is very accommodating and will order anything you request. The big downfall of this place (besides the female manager) is that they replaced their normal parking lot with a parking complex/​Walgreens/​condo which is extremely inconvenient to park in. My truck can barely fit in a parking spot and navigating through the narrow rows is quite annoying. Also, parking can be hard to find at peak hours (even with an additional parking garage in the rare). They should have left things as they were. But all in all I enjoy Sendik’s on Oakland and will continue going back.

I’ve been doing a lot more shopping here lately b/​c the cold weather has me unwilling to walk farther to my usual spot. Turns out laziness comes at a cost.
The produce here absolutely, positively sucks. In the past month I’ve purchased moldy raspberries, mealy apples and expired salad mix. The deli section isn’t much better. I’ve purchased a few prepared items and all of them taste a bit off — not so bad that you want to spit it out, but bad enough that you don’t want to finish. Today I bought a wrap and pulled out a slimy black piece of lettuce.
The workers are nice, though not necessarily well informed. I once asked for help finding the craisins and first had to explain to the worker what craisins are and last week I bought a sweet potato and the checker said, «What is this!!! That does not look like a regular potato.»

I like the new additions to the Shorewood Sendiks but I’m not a regular customer despite the fact I live within walking distance. They added a bar where they have wine tastings and serve wine and beer; I’m not sure if they serve hard liquor. There are new coolers at the entrance with plentiful beverages like kombucha and coconut water. The deli counters were also redone and have a large selection of prepared foods, meats, cheeses, and baked goods — all of which look fantastic. I’m not a huge fan of the parking structure (s). I personally think they look gaudy in this area — I get the feeling they are trying to slowly update Shorewood and give it what I would describe as a «suburban Chicago» feel but I like the charm of the smaller buildings. I also find that people drive like maniacs around these new parking structures.
I only shop at Sendiks for specialty items I either need immediately or cannot find at Outpost… Overall, this is a very expensive grocery store. Several items I like to purchase from Outpost are significantly more expensive at Sendiks ($ 1-​$ 2 or more!); therefore my drive over to Outpost, which is only 3 or so miles west on Capitol, is completely justified.
The aisles are extremely close together, so close they should not allow carts during peak shopping hours. There are only a few cash register lanes, so lines can get very backed up. This is especially frustrating when I’m only purchasing 1 item and am forced to wait 10 minutes to make my purchase. Then when I get up to the line, the cashiers are chatting back and forth to one another. I vividly remember one time the two girls were comparing how drunk they each got the previous evening — very unprofessional.
They do have nice flowers that seem to last longer than the other grocery’s store flowers (I’m referring to you, Pick ‘N Save).
Overall, I’m just not a fan of shopping this Sendiks for my specialty goods especially when Outpost is nearby…

I need to shop more slowly at this grocery store. I go too fast all the time. I wander around like chicken sans head lusting after pricey, artisanal cheeses.
YESTERDAY: Fifty bucks for one bag of groceries, and nothing too terribly high end, to boot.
I still stand by my four stars, though. A solid meat department (chuckle), stellar produce, and oodles of really good foodstuffs. Wine too.

Okay, I’ll admit that I have shopped here. I live a couple of blocks up and there’s only so far I’ll walk in a Wisconsin snowstorm for baked goods.
It’s not that the place isn’t loaded with upscale goods, well-​staffed, clean, or convenient. All of those are pluses in my book. The wine area has wide offerings and the cheese/​meat/​dessert counter in the back is unparalleled. It’s not the store itself that is problematic.
I started to avoid this place because the owner supported Scott Walker’s election, the governor who attacks working people and schoolteachers.
Exacerbating the matter is the redevelopment centered around this place. They sold their parking lot to developers to make space for tomorrow’s condos. I imagine those up-​and-​coming tenants will happily shop here, possibly supporting these causes with their dollars. That’s enough strikes against it, my patronage goes elsewhere.
If you can, get your butt a few blocks west on Capitol and give your bucks to Outpost, whose co-​op strives to support Wisconsin farmers and a local food system.

this place was really cute and i want to go back there and shop slowly and buy things i don’t need.

The bakery and deli selections are very nice. They have prepared items that you don’t see at Pick ‘n’ Save.

The place was in need of a rennovation and finally got it. There used to be a better selection of fine cheese, but there are still a lot of quality specialty meats. That being said this is not the same specialty market it once was and is simply a compact grocery store. If you can’t make it out to a larger suburban grocer or milwaukee public market, this place is pretty good and shouldn’t disappoint.

It went from 4 stars to 3 based on that horrific 1970s top 40s music they continually pump out. Makes my ears bleed.
Meat department is great and the staff there are very courteous and efficient. Bakery is excellent. Prepared foods are really good. Really good chicken pot pies, quiche, and fried fish on Fridays. The one problem I’ve had is with their German Potato Salad. I bought a pound, got it home, and it was disgusting. Globs of mealy meat which I assume was supposed to be bacon. I returned it. 3 of the staff told me that it was the only thing in their deli the don’t make in-​house. WHY? It makes everything else suspect. They’re still selling it.
I think the produce is really good. I’ve rarely had any issues with it. Good selection and reasonable prices.
They’ve been doing a quasi renovation. New tile floor. New refrigerator cases and a couple new bakery cases, and a lot of rearranging deck chairs. PLEASE get rid of that low, black wire shelf in front of the prepared food section. It’s sloppy and in the way.
I would overhaul the meat and the prepared foods dept. they look like they’re from the same era as the music. And how about a second entrance facing the new parking structure? I’m sure they have a limited budget, but if Metro Mart happens they really need to up their game. I don’t want to see them close. I’d much rather patronize them than Pick n Save.

This past Friday’s visit to Sendik’s knocks them down to 2 stars (and frankly, they are lucky it’s 2 and not 1). Why? Once again, this Sendik’s has sold me totally inedible fruit.
They had a special, 2 cartons of fresh strawberries for $ 5. The strawberries looked pretty good. I even smelled them. We purchased. I was excited. We got home and tasted. Completely and utterly inedible. The berries tasted alcoholic, a weird, bitter flavor that stuck in the mouth. Truly the worst strawberries I have ever tasted. And both cartons were like this.
I seriously consider this a scam that Sendik’s is pulling on consumers. This is totally unacceptable. Any retailer with an ounce of self respect would have never put those strawberries out for customers to purchase. (I have worked at Outpost, my brother at another local organic retailer, and neither would have ever attempted to sell such bad product).
It is clear to me that Sendiks had a whole crate of bad strawberries, and instead of scrapping them, decided to push them out to customers.

4 stars for perhaps being the only remaining merchant with the V Richards cream cheese-​topped cinnabon-​thingy. OMG.
OMG.
And, their AM breakfast sandwiches, and cheesy hashbrowns, are Wintertime-​comfort time-​awesome!

Love this place. Great wine selection.

Although it’s located right on Oakland, the entrance seemed a little tricky. The driveway right in front of the store is pretty narrow so it doesn’t seem like the right entrance. However, the parking lot is pretty big and you can enter and exit from the back pretty easily.
The aisles are pretty packed and tight inside. The deli seemed alright in the front and the refrigerated/​frozen area in the back is pretty limited. I’m a big fan of condiments and really liked that they made their own mustard which were different and a combination of brand name flavors. If you’re here to do your general shopping, expect to pay a lot. My recommendation is to check it out and decide on a few things that may be unique here. They have some wine tasting in front and the staff was pretty nice but it’s not about value here.

Sendiks is good for specialty items that you can’t find at Pick n’ Save. I needed a specific spice for my tofu vindaloo that I found here. Plus, a majority of the cashiers are sweet.
However, it’s pretty pricey, hence the reason we called it Spendiks. Also, the people working in the deli department are surly, which made me hesitant to grab anything from that department.
Otherwise it’s not bad. It’s just pricey. Also, the deli food isn’t all that great. I’ve had a few doozies.